The AWARE Coaching Model

A Coaching Model By Richard Lefort, Life Path Coach, CANADA

Understanding The Aware Coaching Model

So many people stumble through life without stopping to think about how they feel about what they are doing with their time. It’s easy to fall into the routine of the daily grind, and doing what it takes just to provide for yourself and perhaps your family. When we get caught up in this, years can go by before we even notice and have the classic; “what am I doing with my life?”, “I hate my job”, or “I hate my relationships”, are just a few examples of how we can feel when we just coast through life without much intention. The AWARE coaching model aims to bring us back into the present moment, understand who we are, what we want or where we want to be, and a plan to help us get there.

The AWARE Coaching Model

Who Are We?

This is the most crucial step of the model, we need to have a strong base of understanding who we are on a deep level. What are we passionate about, what makes us tick, what makes us fulfilled, what makes us unhappy? It’s important as a coach here to be curious about understanding your clients and helping them understand themselves. A great place to start here are questions like:

• What are you doing when you feel most happy?
• What are things or tasks you do where you feel like time flies or disappears?
• What are things you dread doing? (Because it’s as important to understand our weaknesses as our strengths)
• What feels effortless to you?

Our clients might not have all of the answers in the first conversation but awareness is like a muscle, we need to practice using it before we get better at it. We are also looking to identify strengths and weaknesses, I won’t go in-depth about that as there are many tools out there to identify strengths and weaknesses. As a coach, we must be careful not to lead our clients in a certain direction, or form a belief that we must only do the things we enjoy or that fulfill us. We understand that along the journey there are pleasant and unpleasant parts, the goal is to shift the balance from mostly unpleasant, to mostly pleasant ones.

Where Do We Want to Be?

Now that we have a better awareness of who we are, what do we want, and where do we see ourselves? When you are aware of your values it becomes easier to see what things in your life are no longer serving you and replace them with things that do. A great place to start here is the exercise of planning your perfect day. Hypothetically speaking write down a schedule of what your ideal day looks like. Starting with what time you wake up, followed by what you are doing with your time in 15, 30, or 60-minute intervals, and what time you are going to sleep. Try to be as detailed as possible, think of as many variables as you want, think; diet, exercise, free time, work, hobbies, where you live, how rigid or flexible is the schedule, and so on. This ideal day exercise can be repeated every so often to remain in tune with our growing self-awareness. Additionally, by understanding the things that truly make us feel fulfilled, it becomes easier to see the potential jobs that would be a better fit for us. Remember to listen actively to your clients and keep the focus on what they want. It is their life and their journey, it may not make sense to you, but you are not them.

How Do We Get There?

With a newfound awareness of who we are, what matters to us, and where we want to be, it will be easier to understand how to get there. I’m not saying in all cases the answer will jump off the page, but with clarity on ourselves and our goals, we can begin to map out a path to our destination. At this stage of our client’s journey, they might find that they need to loop back and build more awareness of how they would like to approach their action plan. Some people are very independent, some like external help, some are great at balancing many tasks at once, and some are better served to focus on one thing at a time. Regardless of their own style, this is where you as a coach must continue to listen actively, remain focused on the goal, and put into practice your coaching training. Think about and use the PCC Competency marker 8, Facilitates Client Growth. Be aware that every client is different and allow them the space to discover and follow their own path.

Additional Tools

This is where your own coaching style becomes a factor, there are hundreds of tools out there for coaches, whether it be; to change perspectives, organizational tools, awareness tools, or personality tools. It is up to us to us as coaches to be aware of some of or many of the tools at our disposal, and to apply them when applicable. Note that some things require training in order to apply, therefore we must be careful to not overstep our training.

With that in mind, I would like to invite you to explore meditation as an awareness tool. One of the main goals of meditation is to bring ourselves back to the present moment, and from that space, we can have ultimate clarity on who we are and what we want. Not only is it effective in the moment you are practicing meditation, but it also has many lingering effects in the rest of your life, such as; reducing stress, controlling anxiety, promoting emotional health, enhancing self-awareness, lengthening attention span, improving sleep, fighting addictions, and more. Please note that clinical data shows, that for most of these benefits to take effect, you should meditate for at least 20 minutes daily. If I look at that list of benefits and apply it to coaching, they all seem like desirable traits, why not take the time to learn a bit more about meditation and how it can help you and your clients? One more thing I would like to emphasize is that meditation is not one size fits all. When most people think of meditation they think of closing their eyes and focusing on their breath or a mantra for a few minutes. Though that may work for some, there are other styles of meditation best suited for people with hyperactive minds, think of people who suffer from ADHD trying to focus on their breath for many minutes. If you’ve tried meditation before and it didn’t work for you, maybe it’s time to revisit it with these two insights; daily for at least 20 minutes, and explore alternative styles tailored to your mind.

AWARE: Self-Awareness and Better Understanding of One’s Self

In conclusion, it’s all too common that we or someone we know seems like they are just going through the motions, and not getting the most out of life. The AWARE coaching model focuses on the client’s self-awareness and utilizes that to gain a better understanding of one’s self and what it is they truly desire. It is with this newfound awareness it becomes much easier to go after their goals, after all, they are now pursuing their own personal path, not what someone else or society might have led them to follow.

References

[1] https://www.healthline.com 12 Science-based benefits of meditation
[2] https://www.healthygamer.gg DR. K’s Guide to Mental Health
[3] https://www.mayoclinic.org Meditation 2.0
[4] https://coachingfederation.org/credentials-and-standards/performance-evaluations/pcc-markers ICF PCC markers